


Seven years

by Northflower



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: College buddies - Freeform, F/F, so this is what you'll get instead, sorry i don't know how to write happy stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 08:13:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17199839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northflower/pseuds/Northflower
Summary: May always expected that the next time she'd see Liv, it would be either of them finally deciding to call, or them running into each other randomly, or perhaps due to a breaking scientific discovery.What she certainly didn't expect was seeing Liv kill a man on television.





	Seven years

The higher May climbs the dirty white stairs, the less the smell of fresh spring air carrying from outside can cover the stale smell of the building. The dust combined with her being ever so slightly out of breath after yet another staircase makes her want to cough. She no longer runs into spider webs; she’s memorized their placements and knows how to avoid them, having seen them dozens of times before. Nothing about the disgusting building could make her turn away, so she climbs all the way to the top of the stairs.  

May contemplates on knocking on the door in front of her but decides against it as the door creaks ajar by itself, unlocked as usual. The woman slowly shakes her head before pulling the door open entirely and incautiously stepping in, looking at her feet to make sure there’s nothing there to trip her. The apartment is full of irritating, chemical scents, and she can hear the rattling of test tubes from the kitchen right behind a corner. You’d think someone who’s been made aware of the dangers of working around these chemicals in countless lectures would know to not mix them in the kitchen, although May can forgive that since there isn’t really much room anywhere else in the apartment. Suddenly, there’s a slim head with what can only be described as a mane attached to her head peeking from around the corner, and the eyes of this ridiculous woman widen as a smile spreads on her face.

“May! It’s so good to see you, it’s been ages-“ The excited exclamation is cut short as Liv knocks over one of the test tubes carelessly placed at the edge of the counter. She tries to grab it but in doing so her elbow bumps into something May cannot see from where she is but judging by the sound it’s more test tubes. How many test tubes does one student need? As Liv is distracted by the test tubes she bumped into, the fallen one has already fallen onto the carpet and spilled its contents. There’s a hissing sound as the carpet first darkens and then a hole burns into it, spreading for a while before stopping. Liv quietly curses under her breath.

There are already multiple similar holes on that same carpet to the point that with one more spill like that there would be more hole than carpet. The rest of the carpet is littered with stains of a variety of colors. Maybe she should consider getting a darker carpet. And a darker floor, May adds in her head as she looks past the carpet. And walls... Scratch that, a darker apartment.

But somehow, May feels like the apartment, although tiny and messy, kind of suits the person living in it, who’s similarly messy-looking; her huge bush of hair looks like something could and will get stuck in it and considering Liv’s tendency to behave recklessly when doing experiments May is surprised it hasn’t already gotten burnt like everything else. On the other hand, she has so much hair that no one would probably even notice if she lost some. Liv’s wearing a dirty lab coat with darkened sleeves and huge, green goggles that would protect her eyes if she didn’t wear them on her forehead. May feels like reminding her of lab safety protocols, but the last time she did that Liv just remarked that it wasn’t exactly a lab; it was her kitchen.

“Wait a second, I’ll get you something to drink!” Liv exclaims and grabs a huge test tube rack, carelessly taking it over to the kitchen table and slamming it down. The test tubes clatter and one of them spills; there goes the tablecloth. May grimaces slightly, being a very organized person herself Liv’s recklessness sometimes worries her. Yet Liv still scrapes by; and doesn’t just scrape by, she is brilliant and innovative, she cares a lot about what she does and could (and does) spend hours talking about some personal science project she’s doing, getting so much into the technicalities of that all that even May who’s very good at robotics herself gets a little lost in what she’s saying. That’s fine though; it’s just nice seeing her talk about something so passionately.

Liv taps with her feet excitedly as she goes to grab two cups of steaming tea she’s already prepared that are lying on the kitchen counter (although a different one, thank God), but she trips on the ruined carpet on the way and barely has time to balance herself. May quickly strides past her and takes the cups herself; she does _not_ want to see Liv walk around with those. Liv regains her composure and smiles without a hint of embarrassment in her eyes. As May goes to place the tea on the table that is not covered in test tubes and whatever was in them, Liv decides to take that time to hang up her lab coat and put on the glasses that she can actually see with. After that, she follows May to the living room, which is probably the tiniest living room in the whole world, merely consisting of one tiny glass table which is miraculously still in one piece, a bean bag and a wooden chair that’s too tall for the table, which May quickly claims. Liv plops down on the bean bag and taps her fingers against the glass excitedly, the widest grin on her face. May chuckles at that.

“So, I heard you got big news?” she inquires, and Liv’s smile gets impossibly even wider before she throws her hands up in the air and lets out a broken scream of joy that would make May jump back if she wasn’t so used to this already.

“I got an internship at the Alchemax! can you believe it?” Liv cries out and slams her hands at the table, spilling some of the tea.

The smile that had crept on May’s face upon seeing the other woman so excited falters. Alchemax is a company of… questionable morals. She hears the wages there are huge, but if she had been offered any association with the company, she’s sure she would’ve turned down the offer. Liv seems oblivious to her concern, going on and on about how this could mean great things for her and how proud she is to work for such a big company along with her studies… and that kind of excitement is contagious, so the smile that had left May’s face slowly returns. It’s Liv’s dream, isn’t it?

So instead of voicing her opinions about the Alchemax, May gets up from her chair and sits down beside Liv on the bean bag. Liv is giggly, and her hands are flying all over the place as she explains what a big opportunity it is for her. May catches those hands in her own and Liv seems to suddenly become very aware of the fact that they are sharing a seat. May grins at the blush spreading across the other student’s face.

“I’m so happy for you,” she says, and it doesn’t even feel like a lie at that moment as Liv wraps her hands around her as she’s being lifted on top of May’s lap. The bean bag rustles as May moves Liv’s huge, ridiculous glasses away to place them on the glass table. She doesn’t even have time to properly put them down before Liv’s lips crash against hers and they let their tea get cold.

 

 

No matter how dusty the building is, it sure beats the weather outside. May shivers as she tries to wipe some of the slush off of her coat, but most of it has already melted; it’s too late. Water drips on the stairs as she treks upwards. She looks around as she does; disgusting or not, the building holds memories, and this might be the last time she ever walks up these stairs.

She opens the door to Liv’s apartment, not even surprised that it’s not locked. It’s a wonder Liv never had anyone break in considering how careless she’s been with protecting the apartment, although now that May thinks about it, it would be a very inconvenient place to break in.

The floor below gets wet with water dripping from May’s coat and hair as she steps in and almost trips on a box. Lifting up her gaze, she can see several of those big, brown cardboard boxes littering the cramped apartment. The boxes are unlabeled, many of them open or looking like they’re about to burst with the stuff inside. May peeks inside the open ones and can see just enough to know that Liv has just stuffed all her belongings inside, uncaring of whether she’ll be able to find anything afterwards. There are socks stored in the same box as teacups, a coffee maker residing with filthy test tubes that are probably going to break if anyone, especially Liv, tries to move the cardboard box. Some of the boxes have fallen and their contents have spilled outside; Liv has probably tripped on them as well.

There’s shuffling from the bedroom, a crash, and then Liv appears from the doorway. Her hair is even more of a mess than usual and her glasses are tilted so that her right eye is covered by the frame and can’t be seen at all. She lets out a quiet “oh!” before rushing over, looking at her feet as to not trip over any more boxes _and this all could be avoided if she just stacked them against the walls in the first place._

“Let me take your coat, you must be freezing!” Liv shouts and goes for the buttons of May’s coat. May raises her hands, aware of the fact that she could open those buttons much easier herself but not about to interrupt the other woman. There’s a zipper under the buttons and Liv grabs it and tugs, but it won’t budge. She keeps pulling, her brow creasing and at times like these May wonders how on Earth Liv is able to do any of the impressive precise work she excels in. She decides Liv has struggled with the zipper enough for it to become awkward and attempts to put a stop to it:

“I can open it myself-“

“No, no, it’s going to be alright, I think I’m pulling it in the wrong angle…”

“Seriously, it’s fine, I can-“

“No! See, I almost got it-“

May reaches for the zipper herself and tries to pry Liv’s fingers off of it, but she just won’t give up and keeps pulling. Miraculously, the zipper finally decides to open and Liv’s hand swiftly shoots down, her almost falling in the process but she puts her other hand on the floor to balance herself. There is an awkward moment before Liv gets back up and removes May’s coat, hanging it up.

“Told you I could do it,” Liv huffs out. May doesn’t respond, just looks at the coat. The silence is awkward, and she needs to look at Liv, why is she avoiding looking at Liv-

“Well, I have to pack a few more things in the kitchen. I would make some tea but everything’s already packed and I don’t really remember where I put my bags…”

“It’s fine,” May states quietly, still not looking the other woman in the eye. She’s looking around the apartment and it just now dawns on her how empty it looks. Despite it being so small, with everything tucked away there’s so much empty space there. No carpets with burns and stains on them. No wooden chair, no bean bag, the glass table had broken a few weeks back, so its absence didn’t shake May that much. Suddenly she felt like she needed to sit down, so she headed to the bedroom and plopped down on the bare bed, its springs creaking under her. Aside from the bed, there was nothing but boxes in the room. Some of them were overflowing with clothes, one or two had some sort of rubber-covered mechanical parts in them, probably some pet project…

Liv never made her bed so the covers would be a bundled up mess every time May entered the room, sometimes all the way on the floor. From time to time the pillow was in the wrong end of the bed like Liv had been sleeping with her head there instead. If you didn’t know better you’d think Liv had a cat or a dog there in the apartment with her, that’s how much hair would always cover the sheets. Those sheets were probably in one of these boxes right now. The only noise in the apartment was the whirring of electricity and Liv battling with some more boxes in the kitchen.

At least Liv knew how to stick to a schedule. May had been a little afraid that she would arrive at the scene of Liv still sleeping even though she had to leave the apartment for good in two hours.

Speak of the devil, Liv came through the doorframe and landed on the end of the bed May wasn’t sitting on face first, her knees on the floor and muttered something about being stressed into the mattress. After a moment, she gets up to properly sit at the edge of the bed next to May. Despite usually being so cool and composed, May feels a lump in her throat as they sit side by side in the empty apartment. She feels like she’ll start to cry if she looks at Liv but decides that she can’t spend these moments avoiding her either. So she breaks the silence:

“So, you’re going to work at Alchemax, huh?” Liv nods.

“About time you get some decent living space,” May tries to crack a smile as Liv turns to look at her.

“Yeah, they promised me something much fancier than this closer to the laboratories,” she laughs a little, before continuing, quieter:

“But I guess it has been kind of cozy here.” May feels her eyes sting and looks away again, but there isn’t much to look at. Just empty walls and cardboard boxes. A heavy silence falls over them again, before Liv pushes her shoulder playfully.

“Don’t be so mopey! We’ll see again! I know it’s a bit far especially since you’re, you know, studying, and I’m going to be busy with work, but if you ever have time to come visit you’ll be welcome! Anytime!” Liv’s voice has that excited, cheerful tone to it, the same one she has when talking about a science project, but it sounds a tad bit forced.

“Yeah,” May says.

Liv frowns.

“Come on now, don’t be like that,” she exclaims before landing a kiss at the side of May’s mouth. She can’t help but chuckle at that and as Liv dives back in for another quick kiss May doesn’t let her pull away. It’s warm indoors, the cold hail right outside not getting in, but in another hour May is out in the freezing night again and the bus containing Liv departs.

 

 

Seven years.

It’s been seven years since May last saw that slim figure and messy mane, seven years since she last heard that laugh. And it’s all skewed, all so familiar yet so wrong. The context is all wrong. Since while she’d usually meet that woman during lectures, or in her apartment afterward, or even waving after her through a window, this time is different. This time, they aren’t even meeting face to face. Instead, May is watching the evening news in her own house.

Maybe she needs glasses.

It couldn’t be that the sweet woman she knew all those years ago could be on the news, but not for some breaking discover as you’d assume from a brilliant person like her, but instead with her eyes covered by those green goggles she liked so much, a green suit and rubber tentacles springing from her back which isn’t even the strangest thing about the scene but instead the fact that she’s seen smashing a helpless body of a man against the concrete, again, again, and again, and the sound can’t be heard over the chopping sound of the helicopter and the news reporter talking over it, but May sure can imagine how the bones of the poor man would break as he makes contact with the ground. Once the police arrive at the scene, the tentacles attached to Liv’s back spur into action and she quickly feels, and from the news reporter May hears that the man was brought to a hospital but died on the way there.

It’s incomprehensible to her that Liv could’ve ended up like that. Heck, it even feels weird calling her Liv now. Could she be mistaken? According to the report, the woman’s identity is unknown, yet somehow May feels so sure…

Not stopping to think, she throws on her coat and starts storming towards the door. She grabs her phone and tries dialing Liv’s number which she never removed but never called either, but apparently, she’s changed her number. May checks that she has her wallet and opens the door outside.

“May, where are you going?” Ben shouts from another room. May stops to consider whether she should tell him the truth, and hearing in her head how ridiculous that would sound she briefly thinks about not going at all.

“…To the store,” she finally responds before stepping outside.

The Alchemax lab is hidden between birches. Why they decided to locate a laboratory here is beyond May. The air is fresh, and the quiet sounds of the forest surround her; if you were blind, you probably wouldn’t even notice the presence of the laboratory. But May is not, so the brightness of it all irritates her after the walk through the woods. The clearing is full of city lights that don’t feel like they belong there in midst of all the nature. Even at night, the lab is buzzing with work.

May is quite certain the guards would not let a complete stranger like her in, so she decides sneaking is her best bet. She used to be great at sneaking out back when she lived with her parents, how different could this be?

It’s really different, a voice in her head reminds her, but she dives into the shadows anyways.

Seeing inside the lab is easy because of all the light, and the people inside probably won’t be able to see her either; all they’ll be catching are their own reflections on the glass. This allows May to get a little closer than she otherwise would when looking for Liv. It’s odd that such an otherwise secretive company would have these huge windows that seem to be made for someone to peek in. However, there’s no trace of Liv on the side of the building May is surveying, so she moves on to check another wall.

A couple more rooms are void of Liv, but then May’s gaze lands on a familiar mane through a window a couple floors up. She frowns; you’d really think Liv would be tired of stairs by now. She studies the area for any chances of getting up there, but the only thing on the smooth, white wall offering any kind of foothold is the downpipe of a rain gutter. May sighs; it’s been a while since she last climbed one of those, and the last time the climb ended with the pipe breaking free from the wall and her falling. Back then, she’d been living with her parents and being able to climb had been a necessity for getting in and out of the house at night. Now, she was in her thirties. Yet she’s not about to go back to ask the guards to let her in either…

 _This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done_ , May thinks as she approaches the pipe. She looks up and the window looks to be so much higher from there. If she were to get caught, she’d likely face charges, yet all of this in mind she grabs one of the pieces of metal attaching the pipe to the wall and firmly places her shoe on the concrete before starting to slowly pull herself up, getting her other foot against the wall as well. May sighs again; she really is doing this.

Every time either of May’s shoes slips even a little her heart feels like it’s leaping out of her chest and she forces herself not to look down, focusing on climbing and _not_ the fact that she’s committing a crime and _definitely not_ how her back’s feeling. Still, slowly but surely, she rises up the building and finally reaches the window she was aiming for. Releasing her other hand from the pipe feels difficult, as she’s sure it will result in her plummeting to her death (the rational part of May keeps telling her that the fall would hardly kill her, probably just break some bones, but she isn’t feeling very rational at the moment). With hesitation, May curls her left hand into a fist and gives the window next to her a knock before quickly grabbing the pipe again and leaning to see through the window.

Liv is staring at the window, looking startled and _oh so familiar_ if it weren’t from the threatening tentacles springing from her back. Those tentacles, however, quickly retreat as her face lights up with recognition. Probably noticing May’s pained expression due to her back being on fire and her fingers starting to feel numb, Liv quickly sprints towards her, almost falling over one of her rubber limbs before quickly opening the window. She grabs May’s hand with one of her tentacles and pulls her indoors. Liv’s apparent excitement would be contagious if May wasn’t so busy stretching her back. She grimaces as her bones give a satisfying crack. Before she has time to say anything, Liv’s hands are on her shoulders and there’s a wide grin right in May’s face.

“May! I haven’t seen you in ages! I’m so happy to see you!” Liv quickly utters out, and it’s like those seven years never even passed and as if May didn’t just come through a window. May would like to say she’s happy to see Liv too, but instead, she finds herself at loss of words, eyes traveling over the doctor’s appearance. She looks the same and perhaps May could ignore how long it’s been like Liv seems intent on doing if it wasn’t for the few wrinkles, the _even bigger_ hair, the bruises littering all of the skin May can see, and most of all, the rubber tentacles on the floor behind her, one of them painting a dark red streak on the tiles…

“Oh these, just an accident at the lab. It’s not so bad,” Liv suddenly speaks, apparently having noticed May staring but misunderstood the reason.

“I’ll get us something to drink!” she continues and quickly turns around, her four extra limbs coming to life, grabbing onto the floor and lifting her up and towards a counter at the edge of the room which seems to hold a water kettle and several small, colorful boxes, as well as napkins and a basket of what looks like cookies. She really does have a bad habit of keeping food in her working space.

Liv has already busied herself in filling the kettle with water and turning it on and getting two cups from the drawers and tea from the boxes. She’s excitedly bouncing around, making tea, just like she used to, as if nothing’s changed. As if they haven’t been keeping in contact like they promised, as if Liv hasn’t been up to God knows what and as if May hasn’t already moved on. And as much as she would like to pretend this was the case, she knows she can’t. She needs to do what she came there to do.

“I saw you on the news today.”

Liv briefly freezes before turning around, the light from the unnecessarily bright lamps reflecting from her huge glasses, making her expression difficult to read. Then she smiles.

“Oh, it’s nothing, my boss is covering that up already,” she says before going back to shuffling with the tea equipment. May is taken aback. I that really Liv’s greatest concern? The consequences on her?

“You killed someone,” she chokes out, her voice no louder than a whisper.

“He was spying on the company. Fisk could’ve gotten someone else to take care of it but I needed to test my tech a bit after the latest update,” Liv spoke, her tone sounding almost bored. She really wasn’t shaken at all. It was like she was talking about the weather, except that this woman would sometimes manage to make _even that_ sound more significant than the fact that she killed a man in cold blood.

The water in the kettle has started to boil as May tries to make sense of what she’s hearing. She steps a little closer to this person whom she once felt like she knew so well, and Liv must’ve heard it but she’s not turning, just busying herself with preparing the tea. How long can choosing a few bags take?

“Liv?”

The scientist makes a small sound indicating that she’s listening, but still faces the wall. May’s had enough.

“Would you look at me for one fucking second!” she snaps. This finally gets Liv to stop what she’s doing and turn to face May. There’s concern in her eyes, maybe even guilt, but instead of addressing the situation she simply smiles, a little forced, as speaks:

“Gladly, you don’t look like you’ve aged at all!”

May bares her teeth and squints at the woman before her who, judging by her expression, just realized she made a mistake.

“So you don’t even care that you went out there and killed someone? He might have had a family to get back to, and now he never will, thanks to _you_!” May roars, wishing she had her trusty baseball bat at hand. Her blood is boiling with anger and disbelief. Liv lets her carefully constructed smile drop and any guilt that there was vanishes, replaced with anger of her own.

“So this is why you came to see me? After seven years? To scold me for doing my job?” she accuses. Her words sting and May opens her mouth to respond but she doesn’t get to chance to speak before Liv continues:

“I was happy to see you, you know! I wanted to chat like we used to, talk about our science projects, drink some tea! I was ready to ignore the fact that we never communicated after I left!” Liv’s voice cracks and she takes a shaky breath.

“Why can’t we just… have this moment together? Act like everything’s the same?” she whispers quietly, her eyes shining with unshed tears, her face red. May wishes to comfort her, but what comes out of her mouth instead is:

“Nothing is the same. You aren’t the same. And I’m not either. I’m engaged, you know.”

The water kettle beeps, signaling that the water is ready. May’s senses are screaming for her to go embrace the lithe body in front of her, to hug her, to whisper some comfort into her ears, to wipe away the single tear that has escaped her eyes, just like she would before. But she doesn’t do any of that. Instead, she turns away to climb out of the same window she came in from.  She can hear Liv shout out a “wait!” but doesn’t even slow down or look back at her. She disappears through the window into the night, leaving behind the room, Liv, and the two teacups laid out on the counter.

**Author's Note:**

> I have wanted to write something with this pairing since the movie first came out yet I couldn't really think of anything until a few days back  
> So if you have any other fic ideas please do throw them this way!


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